Origin

 

Linus Powell was a childhood prodigy said to have been "born with a prism in his hand" who's time in college was interrupted to work for NASA. He spent a decade refining and condensing the Powell Unified Theory of Light, a theory which proved conclusively the possibility of faster-than-light travel. Powell was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for this, and used the money to build a laboratory to realize this theory in the center Utah's Great Salt Lake.
 
Within the center of this lab Powell built the world's first Nuclear Fusion Reactor, using an Eclipso crystal given to him by Bruce Gordon that

dampens the released energy. The result was a miniature artificial sun. This function, along with having the crystal itself made him an enemy of Eclipso who attacked the laboratory nightly. However the lab itself being an artificial sun had various light-based defenses which made it altogether impenetrable to Eclipso. For this reason, Eclipso tricked the alien parasite Angon into destroying the lab for him. In the process Angon sucked Powell's spinal fluid, activating his latent metagene. Initially Powell appeared to be melting into sand, but as the reactor was about to explode with the Eclipso crystal knocked out, Powell picked it up and moved into the reactor to stop the explosion. He was able to dampen it, but it still exploded. Poetically when he woke up miles away "the boy born with a prism in his hand" discovered he had been transformed into a living prism, and fittingly took the name Prism for himself.
 

Bloodlines

Prism had a small part in the Bloodlines event by hanging with other New Blood characters, particularly the Blood Pack, and usually being pictured next to Loose Cannon. He was one of the characters who lent his powers to Animus in the final battle to defeat the spawn of the alien parasites remarking "Fascinating. Symptomatic of interdependent group gestalt. May I join?"
 
Prism had no appearance after this, seemingly never going after Eclipso or vice versa (likely because Eclipso believed Powell to be dead.)
 

Powers and Abilities

Prism could absorb light and certain forms of energy, and release them for various effects, which being a genius scientist specializing in the study of light he was particularly well-suited for. These effects include:
 

Invisibility

Prism could bend light around himself to become invisible.
 

Holographic Projection

Prism once demonstrated the ability to create a large number of illusionary duplicates of himself. Strangely, sound was shown to come out of the illusion's mouths as well. Whether he could apply this ability to other objects was never explored. 
 

Energy Projection

 Prism was able to fire triangular beams from his hands and eyes fueled by the light he absorbed. He described these as "laser beams" and "infrared beams" and he primarily fired them from his hands and eyes. His Infrared Beam seemed to work as a form of targeted pyrokinesis as he was able to look at and heat up a person or object by looking at it.
 

Super Strength

 In addition to his light-manipulation abilities, Prism's body seems to grant him strength sufficient to injure Loose Cannon,  and completely destroy a door with a single punch.
 

Invulnerability

His crystal body is also strong enough to survive several explosions occurring right in front of him, blasts of electricity -which he's completely immune to- the punch of Loose Cannon, and blade projectiles fired at high speed.
 

Marksmanship

In addition to his powers, prior to becoming Prism, Powell stated he had nightly target practice firing his energy weapon at Eclipso bats.